Soon, I will have an actual physical copy of my book, The Blue Jar, in my hand. That's going to be amazing and unbelievable. There's the feeling of finishing something. Then there's the feeling of putting that something out into the world. I started this novel as a writing prompt on a Tuesday afternoon in …
Pulling the Fire Alarm
One problem about writing about a girl in high school is that I haven't been in high school since 1986. In the manuscript I've been working on, my main character pulls a fire alarm at school. She does so on impulse, in one of those it seemed like a good idea at the time impulses. …
The End of a Book
The other day I finished reading The Book Thief. A couple days after that I read Mockingjay, the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy. Have you read either of them? They are filled with death. So many characters die in both books. I feel drained. How do you feel when you finish a book? …
Death and the Old Year
2013 nears death. Not that our calendar rules the world, but it is the way I measure time thanks to happenstance of birth. Death was nagged at me a great deal this year. A cancer diagnosis and a heart condition will remind anyone of mortality. I feel lucky to be alive. How old were you …
Halfway out of the Dark
I wish everyone the best this holiday season. Perhaps it is a joyful time for you. Perhaps it is difficult. Perhaps it means nothing at all. Whatever your situation, I wish you all good things now and always.
The Solstice
The year is approaching its close. January 1, 2013 I met with a surgeon. I didn't have a cancer diagnosis yet. In fact, the surgeon said that with my case history and profile, I had less than an 8% chance of having anything cancerous. Five surgeries and months of chemo later, I am not officially …
What’s in a Title?
I'm rewriting another manuscript. A few years ago, I thought this manuscript was done. I even gave it to people to read. But the more I thought about it, the more unsure I became. I pulled the story out and started going through it again. Now, I've cut chapters, added one character and deleted another. …
The Past Stays Present
I've written about this topic before, but it is on my mind again. I don't know why. It stays with me. A classmate of mine was murdered in 1981. We were in the same 8th grade history class. I'd spoken to her only once or twice. She was just a girl who sat in the …
Getting Back to Normal Perhaps
Recovering from surgery seems like a good time to blog again. But after I recover from this surgery, I'll start taking Tamoxifen and that should be it. Except for checkups every three months (until I graduate to every six months and then to once a year), all this cancer stuff should be behind me. I'm …
The Watership Down Effect
I found a beat-up copy of Watership Down on my mother's bookshelf. I was in the 7th grade and especially interested in reading what my mother read. A few weeks after finishing the book, I read it again. And before 7th grade was over, I read it a third time. The next summer I tried …
Marta Bacon 